Photo Albums

Noteworthy Photography

Burning Flags PressThe website of Glen E. Friedman. Renowned for both his work with musicians like Fugazi, Minor Threat, Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, Slayer (and many, many more) as well as his groundbreaking documentation of the burgeoning skateboard phenomenon in the late `70's, Glen has been privvy to (and has summarily captured on film) some of the coolest stuff ever. He's also an incredibly insightful and nice guy to boot.

SoHo Blues - Photography by Allan TannenbaumAllan Tannenbaum is a local photographer who has been everywhere and shot everything, from members of Blondie hanging out at the Mudd Club through the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center on September 11th. You could spend hours on this site, and I have.

Robert Otter PhotographsAmazing vintage photographs of New York City, specifically my own neighborhood, Greenwich Village.

Big Laughs

The Weblog of Spumco's John K.The weblog of cartoonist John Kricfalusi, crazed mind and frantic pencil behind the original "Ren & Stimpy," as well as "The Goddamn George Liquor Show." Surreal, unapologetic, uncompromising genius.

August 08, 2016

Where Was Cell 54?

A poster on the Facebook group, Manhattan Before 1990 named Lawrence V. posted a Lynn Goldsmith photo I’d never seen before (above), that being a portrait of the crucial line-up of The Pretenders (i.e. the one prior to the untimely, drug-related deaths of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Farndon) posing in front of New York City location (restaurant? bar? club? diner?) called Cell 54.

Personally speaking, the name Cell 54 rang absolutely no bells with me, but it’s prudent to remember that in 1980, I was all of 13 years old, so there’s a very good chance it just passed me by before I was cognizant of such things. In any case, given the largely NYC-centric nature of Lynn Goldsmith’s work, it’s reasonably safe to assume this picture was taken in NYC and not, say, the band’s home turf of London (vocalist/songwriter Chrissie Hynde was actually a Yank from Ohio, but famously ex-patriated to London circa the dawn of UK Punk).

Regardless, it certainly looks like an NYC storefront. Anyone have any ideas? Weigh in, shot-spotters.

I'm almost certain the address in this photo is 54 E. 1st St. It is most recently the location of Prune restaurant. If you do a Google Street view you'll see that the building on the left still has the same architectural details around the ground floor and above the windows.